An Ideal Husband (Audio Book)

An Ideal Husband is an 1895 comedy by Oscar Wilde which revolves around blackmail and political corruption, and touches on the themes of public and private honor.

The action is set in London, in “the present”, and takes place within a single day. “Sooner or later,” Wilde notes, “we shall all have to pay for what we do.” But he adds that, “No one should be entirely judged by their past.”

An Ideal Husband is one of Oscar’s best plays.

He explores the political world in London and how a young ambitious but poor man can commit a crime, which is a mistake, to start his good fortune. But he builds his political career on ethical principles.

Sooner or later someone will come into the picture to blackmail him into supporting an unacceptable scheme, by producing a document that could ruin his career if revealed. His past mistake may come back heavily onto him.

But he resists and sticks to his moral reputation. He prefers doing what is right to yielding to some menace. He may lose though his political ambition and career and his wife's love.

But love is saved by forgiveness and the man's career is also saved by the work of a real friend who recaptures the dubious document and destroys it.

In other words love and an ethical career are saved by the burrying of the old mistake into oblivion. In other words love and friendship are stronger than the scheming action of a blackmailer.

Wit, intellectual, aesthete and raconteur, Oscar Wilde was born in Dublin in 1854. His writing - including children's stories, poetry, philosophical essays, a novel and several hugely popular plays - made him the greatest celebrity of his day, and he remains one of the world's most frequently-quoted and well-loved writers.